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November
2006
Turkeys: Who are They?By Karen Davis, Ph.D.

Karen Davis
and Florence. Courtesy of United Poultry Concerns

My first encounter with turkeys took place at Farm
Sanctuary where I worked as a volunteer one summer. There was a flock
of about 20 white
turkey hens and two bronze turkeys named Milton and Doris. One thing
that impressed me then, and has stayed in my mind ever since, was
how the turkeys’ voices—their yelps—floated about
the place in an infinitely plaintive refrain. Another was how one or
more
of the
female turkeys would suddenly sit down beside me in the midst of
my work, with her wings stiff and her head held high, awaiting my attention.

Doris wandered about the farmyard all day by herself like an eternal
embodiment of a “lost call,” the call of a lost young
turkey for her mother. Milton would follow us around on his gouty
legs and
swollen feet. His dark eyes
watched us from inside a bristling armor of iridescent brown feathers and
pendant, heavily wrinkled pouches of head and facial skin of varying
colors reflecting
emotions that made me think of a body with its soul imprisoned deep inside.

Milton plodded behind people, stopping when they stopped, resuming his ponderous
tread as they did. He would often stand before you, or appear unexpectedly
at your back—manifesting himself almost scarily at times—decked
out in his full array, his tail in a fabulous wheel, his wing ends dragging
stiffly.
Like the hens in their starched, white wing skirts, crouched exactly where
you shoveled the muck, he awaited your response.

To understand the complex suffering of turkeys raised for food, one should
begin by knowing that in nature, young turkeys stay close to their mothers
for four
or five months after hatching. Turkeys raised for food, however, never see
their mothers. Biologist William M. Healy has described the importance of
bonding between
young turkeys and their mothers for normal social development. He notes that
much of what biologists know about wild turkey intelligence is based on work
with domestic turkeys. He defends turkeys from the charge of stupidity by
observing that genetic manipulation of turkeys for “such gross breast development
that few adult males can even walk, let alone breed” creates demeaning
stereotypes.

Poultry specialist Dr. Ian Duncan of the University of Guelph, Ontario, states
unequivocally that “turkeys possess marked intelligence [as] revealed by
such behavioral indices as their complex social relationships, and their many
different methods of communicating with each other, both visual and vocal.” Likewise,
Oregon State University poultry science professor, Dr. Tom Savage, says of turkey
disrespect displayed in the popular media, “They have no idea what
they are talking about.”

I know from experience that turkeys who have lived their entire lives in
industry settings can still roam the woods and find their way back to the
yard as soon
as they get to our sanctuary. Despite the terrible things that have been
done to their bodies—the gruesome genetics and mutilation of their toes and
beaks at the hatchery—factory farm turkeys are alert to their surroundings
and one another. Several times I remember seeing our peacemaking turkey Mila
stop her testy companion Priscilla from charging a person by inserting herself
between Priscilla and her target. And I have seen how well turkeys get along
with people and with other birds at our sanctuary. Though for reasons I never
figured out, our turkey Florence, who died last March after living with us
for seven happy years, would occasionally get mad at one of the ducks, snood
her
nose down at him, and chase him off.

While researching my book More Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth,
Ritual, and Reality, I learned other things about turkeys. For instance
they “transplant” sound
from one bird to another within the flock at a moment’s danger. They
also dance. In Illumination in the Flatwoods: A Season with the Wild Turkey,
naturalist Joe
Hutto describes how one morning in August, his three-month-old turkeys, upon
seeing him, dropped from their roosting limbs where they had sat “softly
chattering” in the dawn, “stretched their wings and started their
strange little dance, a joyful, happy dance, expressing exuberance.”

And a witness who chanced upon an evening dance of adult birds wrote:I heard a flock of wild turkeys calling. They were not calling strayed members
of the flock. They were just having a twilight frolic before going to roost.
They kept dashing at one another in mock anger, stridently calling all the while,
almost playing leapfrog in their antics. Their notes were bold and clear. For
about five minutes they played on the brown pine-straw floor of the forest, then
as if at a signal, they assumed a sudden stealth and stole off in the glimmering
shadows.

An emotional behavior described in turkeys is “the great wake they will
hold over a fallen companion.” In The Wild Turkey: Its History and
Domestication,
A.W. Schorger cites an episode in which the wing beats of a turkey hen who
had been shot “brought a flock that stopped beside the dying bird.” Similar
behavior has been observed in turkeys on factory farms when a bird goes into
a convulsive heart attack. “It is not uncommon to go into a bird house
and see the afflicted bird lying dead, surrounded by three or four other birds
that died because of the hysteria caused,” wrote a poultry researcher.
Such “hysteria” reveals a sensibility in turkeys that should
awaken us to how badly we treat them and make us stop.

Turkeys have a mysterious empathy with one another under duress, and they can
be fierce fighters as well. A turkey mother will fight vigorously to protect
her young, as described by an observer of the following drama in rural Virginia:I saw a turkey coming into the back field. She had about 10 babies the
size of large quail walking with her. Without warning, the hen took off vertically
as
if she had stepped on a mine. About 20 feet off the ground, she intercepted
and attacked a hawk that was coming in for a baby. The hen hit the hawk with
her
feet first and with her back almost parallel to the ground. The hawk flew toward
the back of the field with the hen in pursuit; it turned back towards the babies,
and the hen hit it again. They both fell about 10 feet and were fighting with
their feet, until the hawk headed for the tree line and kept going. The hen
returned to her babies. When they went back into the pines, the babies were
very close
to their mother’s feet. Wish you could have seen it.

Thanks to this eyewitness we did see it, and let us remember, turkeys need
our help and deserve our respect. Give all the thanks you want but, I hear
them saying, “please
don’t gobble me.”

Karen Davis, Ph.D. is the founder and president
of United Poultry Concerns, a nonprofit organization that promotes the compassionate
and respectful treatment
of domestic fowl (www.upc-online.org). She is the author of More
Than a Meal: The Turkey in History, Myth, Ritual, and Reality. Karen’s essay, The
Turkey in History, is in the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Animals and
Humans edited by
Marc Bekoff and Janette Nystrom (Greenwood).